Sequence: conversation between Charlotte and Ralph occurs after the two scene that interrupt it. If you're really into paradoxes: the end of the chapter is the beginning of the chapter.

"After all, it belongs to me."

Chevauchement

Overlap

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Scene XX

Focus: la Suédoise et le guardien galant, Café de la Paix

Ralph had been surprised to find Charlotte waiting for him. As he approached the table she spotted him and he was unhappy to find her features to be entirely inscrutable.

As he took his seat her promptness reveled itself through logic and he fought to conceal his own emotions.

This was rendered largely useless when she greeted him with a strange blend of bluntness and gentleness, "Did you remember who the architect was when you chose la Paix?"

Ralph blanched momentarily and shook his head slowly. Then he murmured, "I didn't mean to bait you by it, you see, it is just, the inexplicable…does not bear easy on the mind."

With a pang of guilt he thought of the letter in his jacket pocket. Charlotte focused on steadying her breathing. Surrounded by red and gold finery, they were the portrait of a fresh, but muted breakup, neither able to meet the other's eyes. Silence reigned for several minutes.

"We—we were happy together, weren't we?" She faltered.

There was another pause where a strand of a waltz from a bygone era sent each of them spiraling into memories. Ralph cleared his throat and set his tea cup down with a slight rattle before he found himself pinned in place by her anxious look.

"Mon Dieu, Lotte, of course we were!" He said quickly, trying to placate the hurt apparent in her, "If anyone was unhappy it wasn't me, Lotte. Don't look at me so, doubt is not becoming of a lady."

"No, of course not…" Charlotte answered in a sad voice, "it is unbecoming of a woman to throw herself at a man, she is loose and unattractive; yet, a man in unrequited love is gallant and heartbreaking."

"Charlotte! I didn't mean that—"

"I know what you meant, Ralph." She shook her head ruefully. "You needn't explain. It is just that I cannot help feeling guilty."

"Whatever for? I hope I didn't overlook—"

"No, Raoul—Ralph! Ralph, you never overlooked anything. I sometimes wished you didn't see so much so clearly. I hope I never caused you any pain."

"Don't worry about it, Charlotte," he told her. Gently, he traced along the outline of her face, making her shiver and reluctantly withdraw from his touch.

"Don't worry about it," he repeated and smiled at her. He was handsome and his smile was full love. She smiled back immediately, although she suddenly felt like crying.

"I love you, Ralph."

Scene X IX

Focus: la Suédoise

If she remembered right, she thought a little hopelessly, there should be an old passage a few steps to her right. She could hear Max thundering up the ladder to reach the grid and quickly fumbled for the door knob and squeezed through the narrow entrance in the dark. The clanking of his footsteps on the metal rungs followed her. She unconsciously gritted her teeth as the small door screeched shut, its ancient hinges loudly betraying her position. Wasting no time, she turned and sped further into the darkness. It was narrow and musty and although she tried to tread lightly, she felt as graceful as a herd of panicking bison in the absolute silence. The passage turned several times ruining her sense of direction completely and causing her to stumble and fall against the walls.

Cobwebs smeared across her face as quickly as she brushed them away. Her skin was crawling with half imagined sensations in the darkness, and she was just beginning to think the better idea would be to run back towards Max, when something grabbed her.

She tried to scream, but her heart was pounding so badly that all she managed was a sort of breathless wheeze.

"Ma bien-amiée, I was quite serious when I told you not to return."

"Indeed," she whispered faintly.

He sighed and loosened his fierce embrace.

Scene XX

Focus: la Suédoise et le guardien galant

"I love you too, Charlotte. I love you too."

Charlotte bit the inside of her cheek until the bitter taste of warm copper spread across her tongue. She knew it was true, but she hadn't meant to say it. At least he hadn't been in earnest when he'd said it back. There was something completely sober in his intimate brown eyes that had saved her from bursting into tears. She feel so deceitful.

"How much do you..."

"Remember?"

"Yes," she said softly.

"Well," Ralph drew the word out and frowned in thought, "I suppose, I suppose I remember everything, it's rather hard to tell, isn't it?"

"Yes," she agreed in a strangled voice.

"Mon Dieu, is it bad for you?" Ralph grimaced.

"I'm okay." She gave a little laugh. "It was, a long time ago."

"I keep wondering if we haven't gone completely mad," he drawled, and his mouth curled into an attitude of disgust at the thought.

"I keep wondering if I haven't been mad all along," she returned, with wry weariness.

"Can you tell me what is going on?"

She sucked in a death breath and thought about how to answer.

"Hardly. But you–you must have realized...he's still there."

"What?"

"He's still there, and I don't know what that means. But it isn't like, oh I don't know what it's like! He's been warning me away, as if he's protecting me from something else...something else. I don't know, his stature is as terrifying as ever, his voice richer than I recalled, and I cannot wrap my mind around his existence. It's impossible, how can I remember something from before I was alive? What if I've just been brainwashed by a madman? Stranger things have happened, this whole conversation could be a fabrication of my imagination. My reality is dissolving and unless I assume things are what they seem, I'm frozen." She glanced at her distorted reflection in her tea cup.

"Could we order something stronger?" She suggested.

"If you'd like," he said, reluctantly. "Charlotte, I don't want you going back there."

"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped.

Ralph pulled back. "Why would you want to go back?" he asked, astonished.

"Because–because I don't believe it–"

"Don't believe what?"

"Don't interrupt me. Nothing has seemed right from the beginning."

"Which beginning?"

"Both! You only knew of him when he was barking! Of course, he is mad! But he was almost–almost a gentleman, before, well..."

"And now?" Ralph was alarmed and it showed.

"Now he seems frightened. He doesn't want me at the opera house any more than you! It is difficult to think of him as frightened, he's never frightened. It makes me wonder." She shivered.

"I should lock you in your room," Ralph muttered darkly.

"Hmpf."

"You are crazy if you think you owe him anything."

"What am I to do? Run away?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Charlotte."

"Raoul."

She slapped her hand over her mouth and they stared at each other. Finally she looked away, feeling shaky.

"You almost were killed on my behalf once. I'll kill you myself if you try any more heroic stunts like that again."

"Charlotte–" he protested.

"Can't you see I'm not worth it! I'm just one stupid girl. I don't know what I'm doing or what I'm not doing, but I never loved you as well as you deserved, which is bad enough, but, I couldn't stand knowing you'd sacrificed your own well-being. Couldn't live with it. Please, Ralph, I don't want to, but if I have to I'll cut you off. Promise you won't take any bullets for me."

Ralph looked at her for a long time, then opened his mouth, and lied.

"Fine, I promise."

Scene XIX

Focus: la Suédoise et le monstre

The luxury of his voice swept away her fears and replaced them with new ones. She couldn't stop herself from trembling completely, but for all that she knew she couldn't believe that he would hurt her. Unwillingly, her face flushed as she became aware of the extent of physical contact between them and she remembered his eerie night vision and tried to hide it. Timidly, she brought a hand up to press him further back, and then stopped.

"You-you have a heartbeat." she whispered wonderingly. Indeed, he had, pumping away rapidly beneath her palm. For a moment he did not look at her, and then said, "Yes, unfortunately...although I'd like to have said it were for my love for you. The truth is none so pretty." Extraordinary devotion was lit in those golden eyes, they made an unconscious testimony to an unending pain. She blushed again, this time feeling equally ashamed and flattered.

She had thought him cold and expected him to carry a pungent odor of decay. The numerous instances where they made contact told her that excluding his hands, he was quite warm. He did not smell vile, or even musty, but, upon a stretch of thought, she decided, like a morning after a hard frost. When the air was unforgiving of your lungs and frozen water made everything a shallow grave on a bitter winter night.

In his absence his human qualities faded and all that was unreal became exaggerated. This man, if you could call him that, had murdered, countless times. He was depraved and deranged and should have been a century dead. Yet one word from that invisible mouth could make her forget all these things. A phantom by every extension of the definition, but his proximity made her conscious of both herself and how unexpectedly and very real he was. There was a rough edge to the audible velvet that was his voice.

Pity, love, hate, and lust all seemed to run together. A silent sigh softly fanned over her ear, and nothing could ease her discomfort when those unearthly eyes were fixed so intently upon her.

"Our time has passed, ma bien-aimée. I will not play Hades, this was settle long ago, return your Adonis, Christine."

"I am not Christine. How–explain this to me!"

"You are and you are not. More than music sleeps within these walls, when she returns I will not be able to protect you. And I do not make mistakes twice. You will go and you will not come back, do you understand me, Christine?"

"Yes," her mind was hazy, "I understand you Erik."

Then her mobile rang and as if she were in a television and someone had changed the channel, she was standing on the steps of the Garnier. With no memory of how she had gotten there. The shrill tone hacked through the foggy melee of her thoughts. 'His voice.' She wavered and stumbled down a few steps feeling drunk. 'He manipulated me as easily as flipping a switch. I didn't even know.' She looked up at the brilliantly lit facade and felt small.

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Wow. That was a longer hiatus than I'd meant. And I've got the feeling I simply keep making more questions, rather than answering them and I don't want to alienate you readers, but that's probably exactly what I'm doing. Oh, work, how I despise thee...bye!